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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493621">This Is When It Starts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceinSpace/pseuds/AliceinSpace'>AliceinSpace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last of Us</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ellie fixes Joel after his fall, Father/Daughter, Joel and Ellie - Freeform, between Fall and Winter, cauterizing wounds ftw, gut wound, teen and up for language and injuries, traumatic injuries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:00:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceinSpace/pseuds/AliceinSpace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon the fever starts.  It drags him under, slows down the world.  He can feel his heart beating too fast, struggles to breathe deeply.</p><p>Dying is hard.</p><p>An in-between in which Ellie ages beyond her years and Joel goes down to the grave.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This Is When It Starts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world fades in and out around him, allowing insignificant slivers of things as he floats.</p><p>            blood rushing to his head        ---        blood that’s needed elsewhere</p><p>                        a girl’s voice…  it sounds like Sarah…</p><p>                                                            but a million miles away</p><p>                                                   are those gunshots…?</p><p>                                                                                                ---  swaying, rocking, tipping, falling</p><p>                                    burns and icicles in his gut</p><p>               why can’t he open his eyes…</p><p>                                                                                      quiet and still</p><p>                                                not as painless as he thought it would be</p><p>   he’s forgetting something, he knows, he can feel it, even here where he can’t feel his own mind</p><p>--- --- --- --- -- -------- ---- --- ----  something important --- -------- ------- ---- --- ------ - ------ --</p><p> </p><p>He jerks painfully to life and his cry transforms in stages until he is gasping her name.</p><p>            “Joel!  Joel, I’m right here!”  She grabs his shoulder and puts her face above his.  “You have to be quiet, okay?  I haven’t checked the rest of the town, be quiet.”</p><p>            His voice fades with an effort.</p><p>            She’s here, she’s safe, she got them out.</p><p>            “Did they follow us?” he asks with difficulty.</p><p>            “I don’t think so.  I think we got them all before we left.  Oh God, we gotta fix you, Joel.”</p><p>            His eyes fall away from her face and blearily take in their surroundings.  Somehow, she managed to get them into a house and him onto an old, moth-eaten sofa.  Boards on the windows and doors from the inside.</p><p>            “How’d you–?”</p><p>            “Basement garage,” she answers quietly.  “Callus is in there.  Joel, what do I <em>do</em>?”  She wobbles on her knees beside the sofa and reaches for the hands he has pressed to the bloody mess of his gut.</p><p>            “Something… to bite.”</p><p>            She digs a thick rag from his pack and holds it until his teeth dig in.</p><p>            He moves his slick hands, braces himself, and lifts his body into a sitting position.</p><p>            “What are you doing?” she hisses, frantically shoving yet another rag against his wound.</p><p>            He yells against his gag.</p><p>            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”</p><p>            Joel spits the rag from his mouth and moves her hands.  “Gotta see it.”</p><p>            And it’s bad.  He’d like to say that he’s seen worse, but he hasn’t.  Not on someone living, at least.  This is gonna hurt like hell.  He’s bleeding too fast, too much, and there’s only one way to stop it.</p><p>            “Listen to me.”  He struggles to speak clearly.  He’s done this before, but she has to know everything, he’ll probably pass out before it’s done.  “You gotta do exactly as I say, got it?”</p><p>            “Yeah.”  Her voice does not shake.  It is solid and sure as a rock.  She drags the med kit from his pack and opens it.</p><p>            “Can’t stitch it,” he says, laying himself back down.  He points to one of his knives.  “Take that to the stove,” – he’s hoping there’s still some gas left after so many years – “and leave it in the fire.”</p><p>            She does as he says, the stove top ignites in some kind of miracle, and returns warily to his side.  “What am I doing, Joel?”</p><p>            “Bottle.”  He takes a long draught from it and hands it back to her.  “Ellie, look at me.”</p><p>            She meets his eyes.</p><p>            “I need you to cauterize this,” he tells her slowly, laboriously.  “Understand?”</p><p>            She opens her mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath.  “Yeah.”</p><p>            “I might pass out so listen.”</p><p>            She hangs on his every word with a morbid determination that he doesn’t like seeing on her young face.  He struggles with the words.  He just wants to sleep.  When he falls silent, Ellie comes alive.  She offers the rag to him once again and he takes it between his teeth.  For a second, she looks into his eyes with such intensity that his heart stutters.  Or maybe that’s the blood loss.</p><p>            “Ellie…” he begins, her name muffled.</p><p>            Then she moves, lightning fast and without warning, sweeping the bottle of alcohol from the floor and dousing his belly in a single movement.</p><p>            His back arches of its own accord and his scream is throttled by the rag.  The pain is blinding, he can barely see Ellie’s shape as she flies to the stove and back.  The knife is a swathe of golden glow.</p><p>            A hand grabs his shoulder and shoves him down flat, holding him with strength he didn’t know she had.</p><p>            “Stay still,” says her voice somewhere above him but he can’t find her, he’s falling and the only thing keeping him here is that strong little hand.</p><p>            Then his belly ignites.  Positively explodes.  Searing heat and unfathomable pain.  He yells and his body jerks but her hand doesn’t let him up.  Is this what it feels like to die?  Is that what’s happening to him?</p><p>            <em>No,</em> he thinks wildly, desparately, he can’t go yet.  He has a job to do, a soul to protect, this little girl needs him, he can’t leave her.</p><p>            His last coherent thought as the knife comes down again and the pain and the black overtake him</p><p>            --  <em>stay.</em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He tries to wake up and stay awake for her, but he’s so tired.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>This time, he stays awake.  He calls for Ellie and she comes pounding down the basement stairs.  Her face shifts instantly from terror to relief.  Her face…</p><p>            “Come ‘ere.”  His voice cracks awfully, but she obeys all the same.  He struggles to rise, to sit up, and she sits facing him on the edge of the mattress, holding him upright.  “You all right, kiddo?”</p><p>            She looks confused.  “Am <em>I</em> all right?  What are you–”</p><p>            With more effort than it should take, he lifts a hand and gently touches a finger to a corner of the angry purple and green bruise that covers her cheek.</p><p>            “Oh that.  One of those assholes hit me with a pipe on our way out.  Remember?”</p><p>            “Does it hurt?”</p><p>            She shrugs.  “Been a little too worried about you to notice really.”</p><p>            He glares at her.</p><p>            “I’m taking care of it, don’t worry!” she’s quick to say.  “It’s already healing, look at the green.”</p><p>            He taught her that, the stages of bruising and what they mean.  “Good” is all he says.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He can’t be moved.  They are in that house far too long.  There’s nothing they can do.</p><p>            There are good days.  There are bad days.  The first time he gets up on his own, while she’s out hunting, he falls and his skin, burned and struggling to heal, tears.  When Ellie returns, he’s halfway through stitching up a loose crescent of flesh.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Soon after that, the fever starts.  It drags him under, slows down the world.  He can feel his heart beating too fast, struggles to breathe deeply.</p><p>            Dying is hard.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>                        he swims in nothingness, inundated with pain and cold</p><p>                                                he dreams about Sarah and Ellie and someone in between</p><p>                sometimes he hears a low voice but he never understands what it’s trying to tell him</p><p>      he wakes occasionally</p><p>       she is always there with water and food and reassurances, spoken mostly for herself</p><p>                                                                                    sometimes his gut is fire</p><p>                                                                                        sometimes it is his head</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He reenters the world of the living with a gasp, freezing, scared for some reason he can’t name.</p><p>            Alone.</p><p>            He calls her name but she doesn’t come.</p><p>            Something is wrong.</p><p>            He hauls himself up, biting back the pain.</p><p>            She’s gone and he is coming to get her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from "I'm Not the One" by 3OH!3.</p><p>As promised, more TLOU before The Day.  I wrote this fic before I played Left Behind, so it's completely inconsistent with that, but c'est la vie.  (Left Behind is fantastic, btw)</p><p>Thank you for reading!  Let me know what you think! 💙</p><p>18 days left.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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